


This Guilt Will Eat Us Alive (If We Let It)

by macabreromansu



Series: Pirate Bento [5]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 22:57:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13691595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabreromansu/pseuds/macabreromansu
Summary: Marco meets Luffy again and resolves to move on.





	This Guilt Will Eat Us Alive (If We Let It)

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted something fluffy, but apparently I am incapable of fluffy Marco/Ace now, and being sick just makes me want to weigh in on the angst even more.
> 
> Unbeta'd since I'm full of cold and started typing this on my phone at 7am before I lost the will to write it.

It's a monster that's clawing at him from the inside, that never fully went away with time, just got pushed back into the shadows. He faced it, drove it back each time it dared to push forward, because there was _just no time_ , but like a cancer, it festers, biding its time.

 

Every time Marco looks at the newspaper these days, he sees the face of the man whose brother he failed. 

 

When Luffy meets the Phoenix in Wano for the first time since that awful day, Marco wonders what the other sees in his face. But then he looks into the other's open expression, devoid of all blame, just curiosity and... Yes, there is that understanding there as well, the comradeship of shared pain.

 

'I'm sorry,' he begins, almost helplessly.

 

Luffy cocks his head and eyes him, one eyebrow raised in confusion. 

 

'For what?'

 

Marco can't answer, the words dying on his tongue. He spreads his hands in a gesture he hopes can convey his feelings. Luffy grins and slaps him on the back.

 

'Don't mind,' he says.

 

Marco can see the monster lurking behind Luffy's sunny countenance as well, in the seriousness, the focused intent in the expression when he fights.

 

 _This is for Ace_ , it seems to say. _I am carrying him with me, but I won't let it consume me anymore._

 

And Marco feels the well of shame and guilt rise up within him again, because he'd _failed_ , he'd lost against Teach where the old man would have won, because he'd lost his will. He'd lost his heart two years ago, turned to ash with his lover, and it hadn't been revived.

 

Some phoenix he was.

 

When their objective is complete, he pulls Luffy aside before the post-battle revels can begin, both of them swathed in bandages and aching, but Marco feels a lightness that he hasn't had in two years.

 

'Thank you,' he says. And then when the other looks at him with the same confusion as before, he adds quickly, 'He'd have kicked my ass for wallowing.'

 

Luffy seems to understand without further elaboration, his face-splitting grin in full force, but in the next second he's grabbed Marco by the hand and is dragging him to the feast where everyone is waiting, smiling and laughing.

 

And in the Phoenix's extinguished heart, a tiny Flame is reborn.

 

 


End file.
